Grabbing an acoustic guitar<\/a>, he quickly worked out the tune in his hotel room.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n \u201c\u2019Crazy Little Thing Called Love\u2019 took me five or 10 minutes,\u201d he confirmed to Melody Maker in 1981. \u201cI did that on the guitar, which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It’s a good discipline, because I simply had to write within a small framework.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Mercury and May perform at the Rosemont Horizon, in Illinois, September 19, 1980. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” gave the singer a rare opportunity to play guitar \u2014 here an Ovation 12-String 1658 Custom Legend \u2014 onstage. (Image credit: Paul Natkin\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n As quickly as Mercury wrote it, Queen got to work tracking it in the studio.<\/p>\n \u201cWe recorded that song, really, six months before the rest of the album,\u201d drummer Roger Taylor explained in a 1989 interview for In the Studio With Redbeard. <\/p>\n \u201cIt took half an hour to record. I remember he came in the studio. He says, \u2018My dear, I just wrote this in the bath,\u2019 and he did. He’d just been lying in the bath, and there it was. It was very simple, very easy, and it had a great fresh sound to it.\u201d<\/p>\n As it turned out, everyone was present for the session except Brian May<\/a>, who had been at the studio late the night before. In his absence, Mercury strapped on an acoustic guitar to lead Taylor and bass guitar<\/a> player John Deacon through the song.<\/p>\n He’d just been lying in the bath, and there it was. It was very simple, very easy, and it had a great fresh sound to it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Brian May<\/p>\n \u201cIt always happens: If I go out for a couple of hours, they create something else,\u201d May humorously griped to In the Studio with Redbeard in 1989.<\/p>\n \u201cI came back and they’d already put down the backing track. Roger just had the live drums, Freddie had played acoustic guitar \u2014 \u2018cause that rhythm on there is Freddie. I don’t think I played any of that.\u201d<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n While he\u2019s most often thought of as a singer and piano player, Mercury was also a talented guitarist. \u201cCertainly in the early days he used the guitar as much as the piano to write songs,\u201d May wrote in his Queen in 3D book.<\/p>\n May also notes that Mercury had solid rhythm chops, especially on acoustic.<\/p>\n \n Mercury onstage at the Rosemont Horizon, in Rosemont, Illinois, September 19, 1980. (Image credit: Paul Natkin\/Wire Image)<\/p>\n \u201cFreddie was really a good acoustic player. He was very modest about it, but he could really play the acoustic guitar very well in an inimitable, very frenetic kind of style.<\/p>\n \u201cI can still his kind of horny fingers hitting the strings \u2014 Freddie doing his Elvis, very successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n As May revealed in a February 2008 interview with Guitar and Bass magazine, Mercury even attempted to record the song\u2019s guitar solo.<\/p>\n He did the original solo on \u2018Crazy Little Thing,\u2019 on a version that got lost, and I had to redo it. He was very good in a particular style of his own.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Brian May<\/p>\n \u201cHe did the original solo on \u2018Crazy Little Thing,\u2019\u201d the guitarist confirmed, \u201con a version that got lost, and I had to redo it. He was very good in a particular style of his own.\u201d<\/p>\n While Mercury\u2019s guitar solo is absent from the recording, we do have May\u2019s, which is widely considered one of his best. Remarkably, it doesn\u2019t feature his homemade Red Special<\/a>.<\/p>\n In fact, by his own account, May was railroaded into using a Telecaster<\/a> by producer Reinhold Mack, who decided that classic model was best suited to the song\u2019s vintage rock-and-roll style.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Well, I can make my guitar sound like a Telecaster, like those old rock and roll records,\u2019\u201d May told In the Studio with Redbeard. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018If you want it to sound like a Telecaster, play a Telecaster.\u2019<\/p>\n \n Mercury and May perform onstage during the Crazy tour, most likely playing “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” Mercury is playing his Ovation 12-String 1658 while May is using a Fender Telecaster, the same model he wielded on the record. (Image credit: Steve Jennings\/WireImage)<\/p>\n May did so, calling it \u201cone of the few times I ever played something that wasn’t my regular guitar.\u201d Taylor, who both plays and collects guitars, delivered a rarity from his vault.<\/p>\n I said, \u2018I don’t want to play a Telecaster. It basically doesn’t suit my style.\u2019 But \u2018Crazy Little Thing Called Love\u2019 was such a period piece, it seemed to need that period sound.\u201d <\/p>\n \u2014 Brian May<\/p>\n \u201cI used one of Roger’s really old, beat-up, natural-wood Telecasters,\u201d May told Guitar Player in our January 1983 issue \u201cI got bludgeoned into playing it. That was Mack’s idea.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018I don’t want to play a Telecaster. It basically doesn’t suit my style.\u2019 But \u2018Crazy Little Thing Called Love\u2019 was such a period piece, it seemed to need that period sound.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I said, \u2018Okay, Mack, if you want to set it up, I’ll play it.\u2019 He put it through a Mesa\/Boogie<\/a>, which is an amplifier<\/a> I don’t get on with at all. It just doesn’t suit me. I tried it, and it sounded okay.\u201d<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n It may have sounded \u201cokay\u201d to May\u2019s ears, but it was an absolute knock out to everyone else. May\u2019s \u201cCrazy Little Thing Called Love\u201d solo is a stunning example of his ear for giving a song exactly what it needs \u2014 and in a style that has no equal in Queen\u2019s catalog.<\/p>\n![\"Freddie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/yVUfaZjMJdg9Q8mvAhV3C5.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n![\"Freddie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/49Don48MRoQPkJgSGuyzod.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n![\"Freddie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MrkZN9hnvjRfEhK2Tb62Sh.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n![\"Brian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Un6xssoPiNzHbYSm54Wp3R.jpg\")
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